Come celebrate the summer with “First Light,” a richly curated selection of classics of the international silent cinema, many featuring live musical accompaniment.
Too few are aware that the silent cinema was a period of almost incomparable artistic creativity; the lack of sound, rather than a hindrance, was actually a kind of inspiration for the era’s finest filmmakers, who found ingenious ways to expand the visual expressiveness of their works. Not surprisingly, the great silent filmmakers—from Méliès to Griffith, from Eisenstein to Buster Keaton—continue to influence and inform contemporary artists across the disciplines.
Following last summer’s series on French and American film noir, the Columbia Global Center in Paris will now present a wide-ranging survey of highlights from cinema’s earliest years. Once again organized and presented by Richard Peña, Professor of Film Studies at Columbia and former Director of the New York Film Festival, the series will explore the origins of the cinema as it emerged from the influences of theater, literature and the visual arts.